The DeltaWing team is suing Nissan for ripping off its design on the BladeGlider

Don Panoz is pissed off, lawyered up, and headed to court with Nissan.

When the radical Nissan BladeGlider concept rolled out at the 2013 Tokyo Auto Show, we couldn't help but notice it bore more than a passing resemblance to the DeltaWing. Actually, the BladeGlider pretty much looks like a production version of the much-loved Le Mans racing car. The company originally responsible for the DeltaWing feels the same way—so much so, in fact, that it has filed a civil lawsuit in Georgia against Nissan and Ben Bowlby, a design lead on the BladeGlider project.

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The cease and desist order, which would bar Nissan from racing, selling, or displaying the BladeGlider, states that DeltaWing Garage 56 holds the intellectual property rights to design likenesses. Nissan once sponsored the DeltaWing but pulled out of the project in Feburary of this year.

Really, though, the dispute began months ago when the Japanese automaker rolled out its future Le Mans racing car, the ZEOD RC.

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Don Panoz, who financially backs DeltaWing Garage 56, publicly voiced his displeasure with the ZEOD—in particular, Nissan's explicit mention of the DeltaWing in its design language. A little grumbling and griping, but Panoz didn't take any action. Upon seeing the production-bound BladeGlider, however, it seems that he has changed his tune: in Panoz's view, Nissan has stolen his wedge-shaped configuration and implemented it into two vehicles without permission.

Okay, so what about Ben Bowlby? Why is he being called out? Well, Mr. Bowlby penned the DeltaWing in 2009 but severed ties with Panoz in October 2012 and moved to Nissan. He's since been party to designing both ZEOD and BladeGlider. Because much of the DeltaWing's engineering was confidential, Panoz and company are alleging Bowlby misappropriated the car's R&D in creating Nissan's two other streamlined vehicles. Also worth mentioning is that Darren Cox, who is listed as Global Motorsport Director at Nissan/NISMO, has also been named in the suit.

Are the designer's claims debatable, or did Nissan let the DeltaWing team pour buckets of cash into R&D and then pinch the resulting product? The Jackson County Superior Court will now decide.